


Branches

by Carbon65



Series: Repository [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Birds of Prey (Comic), DCU (Comics)
Genre: 7 times, Ableism, Ableist Language, Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Celebrations, Computer Programming, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Graduate School, Injury, Jason Todd is Alive, Jason Todd is Dead, Kidnapping, Non-Canonical Character Death, Past Character Death, Permanent Injury, PhDont, Pre-Relationship, Vomiting, dick grayson is an unsafe driver at any speed, jason todd is schrodinger's robin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-01-15 04:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18490975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/pseuds/Carbon65
Summary: [Chat withDICK]DickI heard a rumor your paper came out. The one that you thought you were going to “Draw and quarter with a rusty grapefruit spoon"DickI owe you a beer.BarbaraIt’s not my first first authorBut you can pick me up at 6:30Dick and Barbara celebrate her career milestone and try to figure out who they'd be if they weren't who they are.Or, a day in the life of seven Barbara Gordons.





	1. checkout master

**Author's Note:**

> This sits midway through the Repository continuum. I've put a firm date on it for the sake of my own sanity. It's set about seven months after Cron Job, and picks up on the project that Barbara was stressing out over. Not required to understand, but worth noting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings: Alcohol; Ableism; Graduate school; Jason Todd is dead
> 
> Pronunciation note: PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science) is typically pronounced Pee-NAHS. The vowel should be pronounced like the ahh in Jonathan Van Ness saying YEAHSSS KWEEN.

> A repository is your whole project (directories and files) that you clone on your computer. A branch is a version of your repository, or in other words, an independent line of development.  
>  A repository can contain multiple branches, which means there are multiple versions of the repository. The purpose of versioning your code after all, is that you can work on multiple aspects of your project at the same time - each of those evolving in different branches. 

\-- [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41398489/what-is-the-difference-between-repository-and-branch-in-git)

* * *

`git checkout master`  
`liv bag20130418.day`

* * *

[Chat with **DICK** ]

**Dick** (7:23 am)
    I heard a rumor your paper came out
**Dick** (7:23 am)
    Okay, I heard Eric and Max on GPR
**Barbara** (8:38 am)
    it’s like… stupid o’clock. Why are you texting me?
**Dick** (8:39 am)
    Its almost 9. The sun is up. I’ve been at work for like an hour already.
**Barbara** (8:40 am)
    We can't all be Boy Wonders
**Dick** (9:14 am)
    And because if Eric didn’t screw you entitely, the paper he and Max were talking about is your first author.
**Dick** (9:16 am)
    I just texted Alfred. He wants a copy for the fridge.
**Barbara** (9:39 am)
    it’s not fridge worthy
**Barbara** (9:39 am)
    And I’m not anything that would make him want to put my article on the fridge.
**Dick** (9:40 am)
    Ha! You are awake.  
And, you used to work with B which means he likes you.
**Dick** (9:52 am)
    And, to paraphrase him, you’re he sometimes paramour of his second and a half favorite grandson.
**Barbara** (10:28 am)
    Paramour? Try ex-girlfriend, Boy Wonder  
Kori's good for you. I like her
**Barbara** (5:30 pm)
    Wait, how are you in position 2.5. He only has two grandsons.
**Barbara** (1:17 am)
    Oh
**Barbara** (1:17 am)
    Fuck
**Dick** (9:26 am)
    Come get a beer with me anyway. I owe you one
**Barbara** (11:02 am)
    There’s an argument to be made that you owe me many beers. Why this is particular
**Dick** (3:25 pm)
    It’s a first author paper beer. When should I pick you up?
**Barbara** (4:17 pm)
    It’s not my first first author  
But you can pick me up at 6:30

* * *

She isn’t sure why Dick is so excited about it. It isn’t her first-first author paper. Her first was came out two two and a half years ago in a low impact journal. She was even first-named on that one, and this one she’s sharing that billing with Max. She’ll have her high impact first-first later this week. And, even though she’d been so excited for it before it happened, a few other things had eclipsed the actual release. She thinks the week it came out she’d been back in surgery while the doctors tried to stabilize... something. To be honest, she doesn’t really remember those early days. And, maybe it’s good.

This set of papers will be better anyway. They’re based on a walkability work she and Max have been working with (swearing at and about) almost constantly pretty much since they got access eighteen months ago. They built an idea out of old city maps, people's donated smart phone data, and demographics. Max built the initial algorithm; she contributed, but he did the heavy lifting. Barbara can mostly do multivariate calculus, if she needs to. (Barbara can also sort through the bat cave's lost and found bin looking for the sports bra that accidently ended up tangled in the mess. It doesn't mean she wants to. Instead, she'd cleaned the data, sorting through the tangle of people's lives and movements and the strange things they do, stripping away individual stories to turn them into a cohesive data collage that was bigger than the whole.

Max used the data to look at cardiovascular disease, because he figured it would be easy. Or, at least, he'd started with cardiovascular disease. And then, he learned that this is Gotham. Max isn't from Gotham, Max is from Wenatchee. Max has made it clear more than once that he desperately misses the high desert and farm country where he grew up, and how badly he wants a position back home. He hopes with this paper, he might have a chance at Boise State or Eastern Washington. It won't be home, not exactly, but it will be closer. But, as a westerner, he doesn't know what the Gothamites know: death comes in all sorts of weird forms. So, he might have started with heart attacks, but it turns out the data set is much richer for all sorts of other weird causes of death. There are plenty of horrifying ones; apparently Gotham has one of the highest rate of respiratory arrests due to short term airborne psycho-active compounds of anywhere in the world. A great claim to fame.

Still, she worries about the relationship between walkability and total mortality. There's a relationship there, but she wonders how much is due to other predictors that they can't measure. Confounders are a bitch. And, one of the pitfalls of knowing your data is that you learn its flaws more intimately than anyone else.

She worries that all their data really shows is that people who have smart phone minutes and time to burn on experiments tend to live in lower crime areas. But, they also cross referenced with bus routes and busy streets, and hell, they even went out and walked the neighborhoods. Day and night. And yes, when Barbara was doing it, she felt the unseen presence of a dark shadow and sometimes caught the flicker of a red silk cape or the glint of a gold letter out of the corner of her eye. No one ever bothered her when she moved through the Narrows. 

She and Max found that lower walkability was associated for higher risk of death from all causes, even after adjustment for other factors. Which... is both kind of huge and kind of scary, if its true. Of course, it's also not new.

On the other hand, she took their algorithm and the data she'd cleaned, and she'd found that even in high crime areas, walkability shaped the type of crime that happened. Or, perhaps, crime shaped the walkability. Except that they'd done measurements of the city streets for actual physical barriers to movement. Crime Alley and the Narrows are simply harder to navigate than other areas of Gotham. And, still even after adjustment, the pattern holds. The patterns hold. Which… is kind of what she was expecting but not at all in this way. 

So, this paper, the first paper, is out this week in a public health journal and hers will be out in _PNAS_. Which has twice the impact factor.  
...Not that they count impact factor or that getting something into one of the big ones matter. That would be petty and self serving. And academics are never that. Pettiness was unattractive and not something to ever expect from a bunch of professionals. 

And, petty or not, she makes a point to stop by Max's office and congratulate him on the GPR interview. Because he does deserve stuff like that. And he did a good job. And, most of the time, Max isn’t a bad guy. He’s maybe overly influenced by Eric Bishop, but she belongs to Bishop, too, in her own ways. 

“They’re your papers,” Max points out. “We’re going out to celebrate, uhhh, Samuels, wanna come?”

“Nah, I’ve got plans. Maybe next time.” 

Even if she didn’t, she probably wouldn’t go. In theory, she’d like to go out with her colleagues more. She thinks life in the Bishop lab would be more tolerable if she had the easy camaraderie the boys share. But, they always go to Samuels, which is cheap and divvy and close… and located in the basement of a building with no elevator. There’s levels of trust and intimacy. “I need your drunk ass to get me out of here” is not one she wants to share with her colleagues.

“You sure? Eric said he’d buy a round.” 

Also, damn, now it’s skipping out on drinks with her boss. 

“Samuels, though?” She raises her eyebrows, praying Max will do the calculus himself. “Any chance you guys’d be willing to switch to Porter?”

Porter is only a few blocks further, a little bit more respectable, a little bit more expensive, and a hell of a lot more accessible. As in Porter is one of the few bars near GSU that doesn’t have a step to go to the door, to the bar, or to the ladies room. The other two are the Rainbow Toad and the Sundowner Saloon. Barbara has been out to the Toad on a few occasions with friends, when they invited her. But, she's also not going to suggest their research group go have celebratory drinks at one of the only gay bars in Gotham. And, the Downer is crowded as fuck on most days that end in y during the semester and Barbara doesn’t plan on a lap full of drunken undergrad tonight.

“Porter doesn’t have foosball.”

Ahh, yes. Foosball. Which she understands is an essential part of the Bishop lab drinking experience. At least according to Chaz. 

And, even with that, it’s more tempting than it should be. If… if Dick. Dick is ridiculously strong. Like, professional gymnast levels of strong and flexible. And, of all the people in the world, he’s on the very short list of men that Barbara has - and would - trust to get her in and out of almost anywhere. He was her partner, once upon a time. They saved each other’s lives too many times to count, back to back and side-by-side. She’s carried him out at least as often as he’s carried her. She trusts Dick Grayson with her life - public and private. She trusts Dick Grayson with her secrets. She trusts Dick’s hands around her waist, carrying her safely where they need to be when her grapple breaks. Of all the men in the world, Dick Grayson might be the only one she’d trust to carry her into Samuel’s, and carry her out again.  
And even then, she’s not sure she trusts her new body enough to let him do that. Because when they were Batgirl and Robin, they were on equal footing and they saved each other. But, without Batgirl, it feels like it would be Dick who would be doing the saving without any recompense.

“Maybe… maybe next time,” she offers as lightly as she can. “I’ll, uhhh, I’ll see you around.” 

Max nods, and starts to gather his things. “I’ll walk you out.”

She checks her phone - fine - and they chat about Max’s new puppy as he shoves his computer into his bag. In the Bishop lab, you carry your computer with you, because you never know when you’re going to need it. There’s no such thing as being unavailable. She’s heard Eric say that. If you’ve got your computer, you’re available. She’s got hers tucked safely into her bag.

Dick is waiting for her by the curb in the Porche. Because he loves that car. It’s not practical. But damn it, he loves it. And, since Dick’s insurance started to go down, he’s started driving it more. Especially in when he’s in Gotham instead of Bludhaven. Which is not something most people would admit to doing. But, he’s Dick.

Max takes in the car slightly open mouthed. “Is this…” 

“Yep,” Dick grins. 

“She’s so pretty…” Max is an articulate man. Except in the presence of cars, apparently. She files this away for future use. 

She continues disassembling her wheelchair, handing the pieces to Dick. Another reason not to go to Samuels: she may trust him with her life, but she’s not sure she trusts him to put together and take apart her chair without supervision.  
Of course, she’s also seen him attempt to make microwave popcorn, so maybe her mistrust is well placed.

Max raises a hand to wave. “Come stop by, if you have time.”

She grins. “Thanks, we’ll consider it.” They won’t. But, she can be politic. 

Dick slides into the driver’s seat.

“Bar?” He asks, turning up the music.

“Samuels,” she repeats. “Wait, no… fuck. You ran away during that whole ‘rebellious’ phase where you decided to grow your hair out, eat nothing but cereal and run around New York in tights.”

Dick sticks his tongue out at her because Dick Grayson is an adult.

“Anyway, umm, dive. Good Foosball, though, apparently.

 

“I don’t foosball.”

Thank fucking God.

“So, where do you want to go?” Dick asks, before he turns up the music.

Barbara shrugs, running through the list of bars that are accessible, reasonably affordable and serve drinks they both like. There are like… two. “Prohibition or Zayle. Do you, umm...”

Dick glances over, studying the set to her jaw. “Something tells me this may be a Prohibition kind of night.” 

“Not patrol, then?”

Dick shrugs. “I’m in Gotham.” 

It’s not really an answer. And, it’s not an answer she has time to deal with now.

“Do you want to leave your car at my place and uber?” 

“Zayle, then,” Dick says like she knew he would. He pulls out in the direction of the Brewery.

* * *

They scored one of those tables with a banquette along one side and a chair Barbara quickly gave away along the other. There are so many little things that have changed in her life that sometimes she’s amazed by how much she notices, and doesn’t. They used to fight quietly fro who would get to sit with their back to the wall, looking out at the room, and who would be forced to trust their dining companion. She never realized how jumpy it makes her to have her back to the room until there wasn’t another option. She’s noticed she’s not alone: most women will trade amazing views from what feels like safety. Dick was always one for the safety to scan the space, though, and so Dick had always wanted his back to the wall as well. When they’d been younger, closer, stupider, and generally more tactile, the two of them would cram into one side of the booth together so they both had the wall at their back and they’d spend the meal hip checking each other across the smooth vinyl to make stealing food off each other’s plates easier. They were friends and partners, and that was all, despite what anyone might have wanted them to be.

“Food in a minute.” Dick drops two pale glasses of beer in front of them: a tall pint glass and a rounded curved goblet. 

She takes the second, and takes a sip. “Gose? They had it.”

He nods, taking a long drink, and then pushing his glass across the table for her to taste. He accepts hers. They both make faces, and push the drinks back at each other, happy with their respective beers.

“So, not that it isn’t nice to see you, but why are you back?”

He shrugs. “Cross-jurisdictional case. Someone here might have requested my involvement.

 

“Bruce?”

“B and I aren’t really talking all that much right now. He’s… You know there’s a new Robin?”

“Dick, you know what I do, right?” She takes a long sip of her beer to let him collect himself.

“Yes?” He lies.

“Then yes, I know there’s a new Robin,” she sighs. “And damn good. Batman is less dumb when there’s a Robin around to keep him from… well, being… hurt. Possibly from being a dumbass.”

“Batman isn’t a dumbass!”

Barbara reaches for the computer that’s… fuck, in the car. It’s so much easier to demonstrate with data when you have a physical incarnation of the data in-hand. (Even if all your data is locked up on some Drake Industries cloud computing center somewhere because someone managed to convince her department that their data didn’t have to be on triple lockdown in-house. ...That still doesn’t get her out of two VPNs and an addition layer of two-factor authentication, but that’s not the point. She could have still waved her computer in Dick’s face.)

“Look, I have data…” she reaches again for the computer that is probably stupidly in her bag in the car.

“I’m gonna…” Dick stands up. And, damn it, she should have read him better. She used to read him better. “I’m gonna go… check on the food.”

Fuck. 

Fuck fuck fuck. She supposes she should know better. Its just… sometimes when you talk about yoru research, you forget how much it matters to people. You spend so much time distilling people’s data that you forget that it belongs to people who matter. Your friends. Your family. And you…  
Fuck.

Dick slides a plate of tacos at her. 

“If anyone asks, you’re my favorite.” She squeezes some lime over it. 

“Umm… thank you?” His face is neutral, but his eyes are still guarded. He’s still guarded. Damn it, when had they stopped trusting each other? ...Probably when she got hurt. 

“Do you… do you ever wonder - damn, the al pastor is good tonight, try some! Do you ever where you’d be, if you, you know, things were different?”

Dick takes a bite of his taco. “Like alternate universes?” 

“Lets try universes where you don’t talk with your mouth full, ‘kay?” 

“Shut up.”

“But, yeah, like… alternate universes. Alternate uses. Just… who else we’d be?”

“Maybe?” Dick takes a long considering drink of his beer. “Yeah, maybe.”

`git commit master`

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While definitely not my area of research, some of the results here are referenced against real studies. Max's research in mortality and walkability is based on work by Nelson et al, 2011 (PMID [ 21499826](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21499826)) which showed overall lower mortality among veterans who lived in highly walkable neighborhoods after adjustment for socioeconomic factors. I have a bunch of other papers I _should_ have read in tabs on my computer, but haven’t gotten there yet?
> 
> I’m… also to figure out how this comic book math works. Im rapidly coming to the conclusion that shit takes a fraction of the time there that it does here, not because the characters are smart but because the writers are dumb.
> 
> Questions, Comments, Concerns, Suggestions, and recommendations all welcome! Please say “hi”?


	2. checkout crime_alley_3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first alternative universe: Three people were killed in Crime Alley instead of 2. Barbara visits her parents in a Gotham Cemetery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: past character death; smoking

`$ git checkout crime_alley_3`  
`$ liv bag20130418.day`

The cemetery is peaceful. The sky overhead is an autumnal blue-gray, the grass is that end of the season green that happens after the long, dusty days of summer, and the cemetary is quiet. It’s not a public day of mourning, so it’s mostly empty, too. Just her, the old man, the young man, the boy, and the hired gun. The peace and tranquility is strange in this little patch of quiet green lawn behind the big stone wall. It’s there to keep people out, but maybe also to keep people in. This is Gotham, after all. 

Despite what it took to get here, Barbara is glad of a moment of peace. She’s walked this route too many times in her life, and sometimes it feels like too few. When she first came here, things were getting bad. But, she was coming here and there was no one left in Ohio, so a Decision was made. One so that she could come visit her parents as much as she needed to. Except, things change. Or, maybe they stayed the same.

She’d make a case they’ve gotten worse since. Gotham is militarized, has been under a military curfew since she was fifteen years old and the last commissioner of police died. After that, Auntie Barbie fled to the city, taking Barbara and Jim Jr with her. 

It’s hard to get to Gotham. It’s hard to move through Gotham. She’d like to pretend that the locals are used to it, that when you live life under barbed wire and sirens are your children’s lullabies that you get used to it. Except that the only people who really live here are the ones with no ability to leave. Everyone else who has a “Gotham” address has gone somewhere outside the militarized zone. 

Getting here today required special permission. Being the niece of James Gordon, former Commissioner of police, buys her something. It buys her a pass for a semi private visit, at least. No extra charge. She wonders what the other two paid to get to mourn alone.

She brushes her hand across the top of the three granite headstones she’s here to visit. Her parent’s first. She traces the letters and the dates. 

Her mother first: _Thelma L. Gordon. Loving Wife and mother. 1965 - 1999_. She wonders how her mother would feel about what she’s doing now. Would Thelma be proud of her? She was happy when Barbara read, happy to take her to the library and let her sit if it meant she’d be quiet. Thelma used to sit and read, too, when she had a quiet moment. She used to sit and read and sigh. Barbara always thought she was reading the sort of thing that mothers in books always read - cheap romance novels with pictures of men in kilts on the cover. And, there were plenty of books in their house featuring men in kilts. And more than a mutter or two about someone named Jamie. But, as much as Barbara wants to lie and deny it, but it was her mother who made her fall in love with literature. So, she thinks Thelma would be proud of her. She hopes Thelma would be proud of her. Auntie Barbie tries, but… but… Auntie Barbie tries, but she’s not Barbara’s mother as much as they both try to play pretend and say she is, and what Barbara’s doing is so far from what Aunt Barbie does that… Barbara needs her mother to be proud of her. She needs a mother to be proud of her. And, in her mind, she hears the whisper of Thelma’s voice telling her she’s done well.

Her father next, and her uncle: brothers side by side. They hadn’t died that way; dad - _Roger C Gordon, 1963 - 1999_ had died in Ohio, and Barbara had been sent to live with her Aunt Barbie and her uncle, Lt James Gordon. He’d been promoted a year later, and died a year after that. So, now he’s here, too: _Cm James Gordon; Devoted to the city 1960-2002_. He’d been an anchor she’d clung to, everything her dad hadn’t been. Uncle Jim hadnt bullshitted her, hadn’t asked her to lie for him, hadn’t wanted her to be anything but who she was. Uncle Jim would be proud of her, she thinks. 

She tests the spongy ground with the toe of her shoe, before pulling out a tarpaulin and a blanket. Those had been harder to get in. She’ll leave them here. A tip to their hired gun on top of the ConCar money. She lays the two out, and settles herself down for a good chat. She can pretend like her parents and uncle Jim will understand what she’s saying and not ask worriedly if she’s sure it’s safe. Or that she could do better somewhere else. She supposed that’s the one benefit of dead parents; they trust your choices. 

The rest, well… she misses them. She misses them every day. It’s an ache that fades in and out. Somedays, it’s fine, and she almost forgets that anything is wrong. It feels normal to just have her aunt and her cousin and have that be her family. Other days, the pit of her grief reaches out to swallow her whole, until there will be nothing left. Usually, she stands in the middle: sad and frustrated and often so angry that she can’t explain it. It’s days like last week that get her to that point. She’s mad: mad at them for being and mad at them for leaving and sometimes, mad at them for not taking her with them. She’s mad at her father for drinking as much as he did, and she’s mad at her mother for not driving that night, and she’s mad at Uncle Jim for deciding to take the job in Gotham when he knew the city was falling apart. 

When she has days like these, she tries to envision what life would be like if her parents hadn’t died. And… she doesn’t know what to imagine. She wouldn’t be living in Chicago, where Aunt Barbie moved them because she thought it would be safer. They were… and they weren’t. At least it was a somewhat more predictable kind of violence. Chicago might be corrupt, the whole Illinois political system might be corrupt (Barbara had grown up during the Blagojevich years), but it was a predictable kind of corrupt. Birthday party clowns were normal scary and not machine gun scary. She’s… content with her life there. She got her bachelors in education in Urbana and now, she teaches high school english. Half her colleagues are Teach For America blow throughs, but she likes where she is. And, she knows if she stayed in Ohio, or in Gotham, she wouldn’t be where she is.

“Ma’am?” She glances up to see the hired guard. Todd, she thinks. “Ma’am, Im sorry to disturb you, but we have about ninety minutes to curfew and I didn’t know if I was taking you to a hotel or the gates.” 

“Uhhh…” Curfew? Right. Gotham. The word reminds her, and she studies his scruffy hoodie for the faint outline she’d paid extra for. “Uhhh, hotel. I have, umm…” she pulls it up in her phone and shows him the address. “Hotel.”

Todd nods. “Yeah, okay. You and Mr. uhh Mr. Grayson. You’ve got…” He pushes back the sleeve of his hoodie to check his watch, “about fifteen more minutes. I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am, I’ll come get you when it’s time.”

“Thank you.” 

She sinks down for a moment, waiting for her heart to stop beating. This is Gotham. You don’t sneak up on people in Gotham. Or, maybe you do. She’s never sure how to feel in Gotham, constantly both on edge and constantly forgetting to be on edge so that when she’s surprised she swings further back to on edge than she did to being with. It’s like she’s walking around with all her muscles tense.  
She wonders if that’s what its like to live here; if all the Gothamites feel that same joint tensions and relaxation or if its just a background humm of the way things are.

Part of her wants to ask Todd. Except that the reason he was so expensive is because he is ConCar and she really doesn’t want a gun pulled in her face because she sneaked up on him. Also, she doesn’t want to deal with the fine that gets incurred when a gun gets pulled by a non-police officer in Gotham city limits. Not that the fine ever really holds up, it’s mostly been ruled unconstitutional. But, it’s enough to get you held, and then funneled into the system. And, once you’ve spent time in Blackgate or Gotham State… It’s hard to get legal work in Gotham. It’s harder still to avoid debts that end up in an illegal job and a revolving door. If you get someone arrested for something stupid and they end up in trouble because of you… it’s not worth the cost. Not worth it at all.

She… she feels like she should stay, should milk every moment of the borrowed reprieve and the time with her parents. But, the peace is gone. And, all she can think of is how Uncle Jim would be reacting. Part of her is glad that he never lived to see Gotham City, Police State. Part of her knows that his death is what triggered the state of emergency that lead to this in Gotham. That if he’d lived, the city wouldn’t be this way… 

Instead of asking the empty afternoon, she says a quiet goodbye to her parents. She promises to visit them again soon, an empty promise and they all know it. But, they’re words that she needs to say.

She goes to stand next to Todd, where he’s waiting for Mr uhh Grayson, the kid, and the older man. She sets down the bag with the tarp next to him, and he nods. He pulls a cigarette out of his pocket, and lights up, taking a low draw. He holds it out to her, mouth cocked, but she shakes her head. Her dad smoked. Uncle Jim smoked. She associates the smell of stale cigarettes with regrets and tears and any comfort that she might have drawn in long gone.

Todd checks his watch again. “I’m going to go get Mr. Drake. Will you wait here?”

“What about…?” She nods at the gentleman up the hill.

Todd shrugs. “Go get him, if you’d like.”

She trudges up the low, green hill toward the old English gentleman and the three graves he’s visiting. There’s two close together, and a smaller one off to the right. The ground around them is tidy, but aside from this gentleman, there’s no one else there. It’s clear that these are cared for, but that no one has visited in a long time. 

“Sir, uhh, we need to leave soon.” She feels a strange sense of fear interrupting the elderly man.

He sighs. “Of course, of course, thank you. Just… one moment, if you’d please?”

He stands in silence, his long shadow long in the late afternoon sun. And then, he makes his way slowly down to the base of the hill. 

Barbara stays for a moment, watching him go. She studies the stones, tracing her fingers over the names and the dates, as though they hold the secret to a different world. And, maybe they do.

_Thomas Wayne_

__Martha Wayne_ _

__Bruce Wayne  
2.19.72-2.19.82_ _

_`$ git commit` _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is what I mean by alternate universes.
> 
> Major events in this universe are:
> 
>   * (1982 ) Bruce died with his parents so there was never any possibility of Batman 
>   * (1980s) The villains still were villians in Gotham and the city was falling apart so Jim Gordon either came as a detective or stayed as a detective, IDK 
>   * (1999 ) Barbara's parents died and she moved to Gotham 
>   * (2000 ) Dick's parents died and they were buried in Gotham but he stayed with the circus (no Robin) 
>   * (2002 ) Jim Gordon was killed in an attack on the city. The state goverment or mayor or some combination declared a state of emergency and the US miliarty swept in and put the city under martial law. Everyone who could afford to left. 
> 

> 
> Comments, questions, concerns, suggestions, critiques, rambles, stories about your day or tangents only barely related to the content here all welcome.


	3. git checkout no_chill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A second alternative universe. In which Gotham is thriving and Barbara attends a benefit in terrible shoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Alcohol consumption. Meddling old ladies

`git checkout no_chill`  
`liv bag20130418.day`

>   
>  **FROM** : JAMES GORDON (james.gordon@lexmail.com)
> 
>  **TO** : BARBARA GORDON (bgordon926@dkserv.com)
> 
>  **Subject** : FWD: Wayne Foundation Gala, A Night at the Circus
> 
> Barbara, will you come with me? Mrs Wayne bought a seat for me at one of her tables. S is busy and it's been suggested that if I show up alone, I will be added to the bachelor auction. I do not want to be auctioned off.
> 
> \--Uncle Jim
>
>> The Martha Wayne Foundation  
>  invites you to
>> 
>> ## A Night at the Circus
>> 
>> ### To benefit the Park Row Community Center
>> 
>> Please join us at 7 pm on April 18, 2014 for this special event. The party will be held at Wayne Manor. Dinner, Silent Auction, Dancing, and entertainment.
>> 
>> Please RSVP eileen.seeley@waynefound.org (609-572-3032).
> 
>   
> \----------  
> James Gordon

* * *

It’s… its not so much trouble to go to the benefit with her uncle. Gotham is liker her second home and Jim is like a second father. She’d lived with him for two years in highschool, after it was announced that the Patrick Wayne Foundation would provide free university tuition to any entering freshman who had lived in Gotham for at least two years and could show college preparedness. Given that even with a scholarship, OSU was going to put her deep into debt, it made sense to move to Gotham. Besides, she wanted to go into forensics, and GSU has a good program. One of the best in the mid atlantic, if not the country.

She’d left after college, gone west to get a masters in Star City, then gone to Metropolis to start doing forensics work. There’s always more law enforcement budget in the cities with the vigilantes and metas, some sort of monetary attempt to balance out the chaos they cause. And, God, she’s so happy that New York ended up with that condiment king fucker. Like… who needs that? 

She’s never lived in a town with a superhero or a vigilante. Where she grew up was too small and generic to warrant either. And, Gotham doesn’t have one because Gotham never needed one. Crime… crime happens in Gotham. Petty, low level crime. Parking tickets and moving violations and dumb middle class kids who shoplift because they weren’t taught “no”. And, there are still a few mofias, laundering money and moving illegal products through the city. Somehow, though, even those are in a balance with the local police. The mobs don’t exploit the locals much, partially because they live in the community and partially because the locals are hard to exploit. Barbara blames Gotham’s limited crime, and therefore, lack of a vigilante, on the Waynes.

The Waynes have made poverty their personal mission and they’re the second group of billionaires to manage to make themselves millionaires by giving it away. (And, they have the good grace to not make twitter pronouncements that ruin Barbara’s childhood.) They’ve done loads of good in the community. It started, Barbara has heard, with the early childhood education programs. This was way back when Bruce was a kid, apparently. And then, free school lunches for anyone who needed one, no questions asked. The free clinics had followed, the housing-first outreach services had followed, paving the way for Salt Lake City. It’s nice to have external confirmation of things the city already knew: that it’s cheaper in the long run to house people and then get them treatment. The Waynes, she’d heard, had also been experimenting with Universal Basic Income in the past few years. ...And, that was just their philanthropy. Wayne Enterprises was a slap in the face to anyone who said you couldn’t turn a profit and treat your workers well. Between the Wayne’s direct actions and their political clout to put honest attorneys and judges; a liberal city council and overturn ineffective legislation at whatever level they see fit, Gotham is a city that is thriving. And, she thinks she’d like to come back.

Really, it didn’t take much mental gymnastics to justify the drive up to Gotham to see the uncle who is more like her father. She has no regrets about that.

Her heels, on the other hand… those may have been a mistake. Half price, but also half a size too small. And, the invitation hadn’t lied yet, so she had no reason to believe it would be lying about the dancing part. Thus far, there’d been a series of tastefully placed circus performances: clowns in corners, and a pack of trained dogs in one of the side rooms. Outside, on the lawn, a tent was set up for a trapeze act. It was the best “night at the circus” Barbara had ever seen, and that included a few times that she’d been to the circus as a child. So, she had no reason to believe that the invitation would lie about the dancing, either. Which… oh god. 

She’s currently smiling her way through dinner, chatting with their table companions about all sorts of things. The O’Malleys have gotten a new puppy, and at first they were afraid that the cat was going to hate it, but it turns out their old queen has just been waiting for a baby. The pictures are adorable. And, the Vasquez's daughters both got into their top choice for colleges. Suze will be starting at GSU in the fall for Botany, and Aimee will be doing graphic design at Hudson. The way Mr. Vazquez’s mouth twitches when he says “Hudson” is funny to Barbara. She can’t decide if its because he wants his little girl at home, or the fact that it’s not Gotham State. 

As the servers come around to clear their plates before the dessert course, Barbara watches as Mrs Wayne makes her slow way up to the podium. Her hair shines silver and her long blue dress sparkles under the chandeliers. 

“Welcome to you all. Thank you so much for joining us at this party to celebrate the Park Row Community Center.” Mrs Wayne suffles her papers. “Park Row will always have a _special_ place in Thomas and my hearts.” Mrs Wayne’s lips quirk into an expression that makes it clear that something happened in Park Row. Given Mr. Wayne’s wince, she guesses that _special_ is code for something else. “We’ve been happy to see the neighborhood revitalized. The community center is simply an extension of our commitment to the area. I’d like to introduce three of the stars of that program.” 

She motions the three children who have been sitting at the head table up to the stage. There’s a pair of girls who are… fuck. Barbara’s terrible at judging children’s ages. When she was a kid, she swore she’d never be an adult who is bad at kids. And… here she is, twenty five and just terrible at kids. She’s an only child, JJ is well… JJ isn’t having kids any time soon, and it’s not like she’s all that close with her mother’s family. Her colleagues aren’t really kid people either. So, umm… they’re somewhere in that preteen to teenage stage, she thinks. Maybe middle school or high school? And possibly sisters? The taller one is wearing heels, so she’s probably older? Maybe? They talk about how they’re excited to go to the community center. About the after school art programs, about the tutorining, about how excited they are to be here and how much they’re learning.

And then the boy - Jason, dear - goes to the microphone. He’s got a shock of dark hair, piercing green eyes and a take no shit expression. He’s older than the girls, somewhere after puberty, but still young. Like, he shaves but he probably has to shave because otherwise he gets one of those pube stashes that he’s ridiculously proud of. 

“Bruce caught him trying to steal the tires off his lamborghini,” Uncle Jim whispers in her ear. “I probably would've sent him to juvy, but Brucie decided to half adopt the kid.”

She watches Jason with interest. She wonders what it’s like to have been adopted by a shark like Bruce Wayne. He’s been CEO most of her life, and the company’s portfolio seems to just keep growing. Wayne is somehow both ruthless and principled in business decisions while also managing to be relentlessly personable. Her uncle used to come home on the verge of tears caught somewhere between laughing and crying over the latest thing the Wayne Scion had attempted. Apparently acquiring a teenager is one of his latest flights of fancy. Although, the way Uncle Jim described it, CEO of WE might have been a flight of fancy at one point as well. She only hopes Bruce turns out to be as good with Jason as he was with the company. She’s not sure, though. The boy’s eyes dart around the room, and some of his words are laden with a double meaning that she wishes she had the super secret decoder ring to understand. The applause in the ballroom are polite after Jason finishes. Polite, but not enthusiastic. 

Mrs Wayne moves toward the podium to finish her remarks, and seems to tumble. It’s Jason who offers an elbow so she can catch herself, and Jason who escorts her back to the podium. There are a few more words about the silent auction and dessert and dancing. And, Jason stays there, just behind Mrs Wayne, waiting to help her down the stairs. Somehow, that says more to Barbara than anything else she’s heard or seen from him tonight.

* * *

The gardens are cool, probably too cool for what she’s doing. Which is sitting on a bench by a rose bush, shivering slightly, and hoping she doesn’t run her nylons. Her strappy silver heels are sitting next to her because she can’t do the high school thing and just… take them off. At least, not while she’s dancing. And, having danced once with Uncle Jim, it’s not like there’s anyone else lining up to dance with her.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” 

She glances up to see Mrs Wayne standing next to her, a cane in one hand and a heavy blanket draped over the other.

“Of course, I’m sorry.” Barbara blushes and scoops her shoes off the bench. She tries to brush away the imaginary dirt.

Mrs Wayne lays out her blanket, and gingerly sits next to Barbara. “I’m so glad you could come tonight, Miss Gordon.”

“Thank you, Mrs Wayne, but please, it’s Barbara.”

Mrs Wayne smiles. “Of course, dear. Your father is so proud of you.”

Barbara blushes again. “Thank you,” she mutters.

“You should go ask that young Mr Grayson to dance.”

“What?”

“I saw you looking at him. He’s… quite fit.”

“I…” Barbara can’t believe they’re having this conversation. Yes, the young Mr Grayson of the flying Grayson is quite fit. He’s got floppy hair and kind brown eyes and looks that she’d fall hard for. He’s probably older than he appears. He looks young and fresh faced, but she doesn’t think he can be that much younger than she is. At the same time, probably the only thing they have in common is the fact that they’re under 30 and here with their parents. She’s not sure how that would work. “I umm… I don’t know him.”

Mrs Wayne grins, the expression making her look both more beautiful and slightly sinister. In a little old lady turns into a meddling witch kind of way. God, Barbara hopes this isnt a set up. “I’ll introduce you!” She sounds far too cheerful. “Help me up, dear.”

Barbara sighs, and straps her feet back into her shoes with a wince.

“There are always blister pads in the second drawer on the right in the blue bathroom,” Mrs Wayne says conversationally. “I remember the years of those heels. I don’t miss those days.”

Barbara glances down Mrs Wayne’s shoes. She’s… she’s not sure how to feel about a woman who is probably old enough to be her grandmother wearing a pair of sequined Chuck high tops under her dress.

“Uhh… Thank you?”

“Happy to, dear. Now, let me introduce you to Richard. He’s such a sweet boy.” 

Barbara offers her arm, trying her best to conceal her resignation. Mrs Wayne might look slight, but her grip is like iron as she gets to her feet. 

“My knees are… I would say don’t get old, dear, but this isn’t from being old. Don’t get arthritis, dear.”

* * *

“She looks like the cat who swallowed the canary,” Dick whispers in her ear as he leads her around the dance floor. (“Dick as in… the president?” “No, Dick as in my parents were sheltered carnies and named me after my great uncle and didn’t realize it would make me the laughing stock of fourteen year old boys everywhere.”) 

“Who?” She whispers back, leaning into his shoulder. They’re nearly the same height with her stupid strappy heels.

“Mrs Wayne!” He hiss. “She looks… we’ve known the Waynes since I was a little boy and Mr Haley ran into some trouble and we got stuck in Gotham. Mrs Wayne in devious.” 

“She looks like a sweet, little old lady.”

“Yeah, sweet. And deadly.” 

She giggles. She can’t help herself. Not the kind of awkward bad dancer giggle that she used to do when she took swing dancing in college. No, the kind of giggles that come from enjoying yourself.

“She normally insists that I dance. Which is like dancing with… my great aunt or something. This is the first time in… ever she’s given away her dance.” 

Barbara relaxes into the spin he’s propelling her to take. Dick is a far better dancer than she is. His lead is somehow both gentle and yet incredibly strong and she’s actually inclined to follow. “Should I feel honored?”

“Very,” Dick whispers against her cheek. “Very.”

They stay close, Barbara’s body pressed against his muscles, until the song ends. 

Dick pulls her off the floor. “Care for a drink?” He produces two bright red tickets from somewhere inside the suit jacket that magically materialized in place of his skin tight leotard from earlier. Not that she really minds either. 

“Those don’t actually…” She finds herself saying. “I thought it was an open bar.”

Dick cocks his eyebrows. “Its Tuesday. Cash.” He wrinkles his nose. “Open is for Fridays. And weddings.” 

“Actually, though, an open bar doesn’t cost any more.” God, did she really just say that? Why did she say that? 

“Sometimes, you regulate behavior other ways. Sorta like a sin tax.” Dick presents the tickets to the bartender and motions toward Barbara. “Although if this is the tax, I’m happily a sinner.”

How does he do that eyebrow thing? What is that eyebrow thing? Why is he so pretty? Oh God. This is bad. This is so bad.

She tries to hide her flush in her glass of cava. Cava is a bad thing to hide a blush in. She probably should have gotten a beer, like Dick. Except that her options were IPA, IPA, bitter disappointment, sex in a canon, and another IPA. Dick… appears to like IPAs?

“Should we, ummm….” She motions vaguely back outside.

“Sure,” he says. “I, umm, I want to know more about this open bar thing.”

`git commit`

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Thank you to PennySparrow for the suggestion/permission to give Martha Wayne Converse because (2) I’m HC’ing her here with Rheumatoid Arthritis. It’s an excellent excuse to wear converse with good insoles to a party, and the treatments up until the last 10 years have pretty much required birth control, thus preventing additional Wayne children in Bruce’s generation. (3) I ran what was essentially a 3 day science wedding and discovered thanks to my amazing event planner that open bars and ticket-limited cash bars cost about the same. I think it was $10 on 120 people, or something stupid like that. Apparently Barbara catered in college to pay for her book habit. You can’t tell me she didn’t show up to school with a milk crate of novels and leave having to dismantle like 2 5-shelf target book cases because of how many paperbacks she brought into her dorm room.
> 
> Major events in this Universe were the Waynes not dying in Crime Alley. (Essentially forked at the same time as the last one, it just ran in a different direction.) 
> 
> Questions, Comments, Concerns, Suggestions, Tangents, Well Wishes, Ill wishes, excuses for my tango teacher as to why I don't have obliques like Dick Grayson and therefore cannot face sideways while my legs walk forward all more than welcome.


	4. 3in_left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternative Universe 4: In which the Joker's bullet went 3 inches to the left

`$ git checkout 3in_left`  
`$ liv bag20130418.day`

The sunlight is gentle this morning and the dew is soft. It rained last night, and it will thunder again later this afternoon. The flowers that came are wilting now… maybe the men will bring more again. Maybe potted this time, and not just cut. The person they’re leaving them for doesn’t care. Beneath the stone, all is darkness. 

`$ git commit`

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dont know what Im doing? Should I just abandon this? I have one more written and one missing and I could just leave it at 5? IDK. This seems like a failed experiment. Please tell me.


	5. git checkout little_wing_lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Universe: Closer to our own. Barbara and Dick still celebrate her first author paper with drinks, except this time they do it in the manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter specific warning Ableist language; Food; alcohol mention; permanent injury; medical stuff; medical inaccuracy; Dick Grayson is an unsafe driver at any speed; graduate school

`git checkout little_wing_lives`  
`liv bag20130418.day`

* * *

Chat with [ **BOY BLUNDER** ]

**Boy Blunder** (12:26 pm)
    Com’on Babs, I still owe you a beer.
**BAG** (3:02 pm)
    There’s an argument to be made that you owe me many beers. Why this one in particular
**BAG** (2:02 pm)
    ?
**Boy Blunder** (3:25 pm)
    It’s a first author paper beer. When should I pick you up?
**BAG** (4:17 pm)
    It’s not my first first author  
But you can pick me up at 6:30 from GSU

* * *

She isn’t sure why Dick is so excited about it. It isn’t her first paper. It isn’t even her first-first author paper. And, yeah, it’s a necessary step career wise. But, it’s just… maybe she would be more excited about it if Eric had let her be the one to promote it. Instead, he’d given the radio interviews to Max. Because Max designed this study, looking at the relationship between walkability and health outcomes which people already knew about. Because Max is further along in his career and needs the additional media presence to help him get a faculty job back in Belgium. Or because Max sounds like what a informatician is supposed to sound like and Eric once commented that Barbara sounded like she got lost on her way home from Lollapalooza.  
Leave it to Eric Bishop to accuse her of having a midwestern accent. Ohio doesn’t have an accent, it’s the goddamn American default.

She’s about to go congratulate Max, anyway. No matter how jealous she feels about the fact that he gets to be the voice on the radio and she’s the girl in the data. She’s going to congratulate him and thank him for working with her and keep that green eyed monster under wraps. She just… 

Another round of texts come through.

* * *

Chat with [ **Boy Blunder** ]

**Boy Blunder** (4:45 pm)
    Uhhh. Rain check? Sorry
**BAG** (4:48 pm)
    Everything okay?
**Boy Blunder** (4:50 pm)
    Yeah, B is busy and A’s still recovering and is on light duty for another week
**BAG** (4:50 pm)
    Light duty?
**Boy Blunder** (4:51 pm)
    Hernia surgery. Reminder he’s a mere mortal like the rest of us and not a demi god
**BAG** (4:52 pm)
    Glad you finally read those Percy Jackson books. Give them my love?
**Boy Blunder** (5:07 pm)
    Ill text you later

* * *

She wonders if she should offer to go over. Probably. That would have been the nice thing to do. Maybe. To get some food, because if Alfred is on light duty and can't cook and then, Bruce and Dick are the primary hunters and gatherers in the house... Oh God.

Dick, she suspects, has figured out the microwave. (Except for Popcorn. Dick is not allowed to popcorn.) He can probably make a mean Stoffers. And, she remembers a history of mostly edible sandwiches. But, the stove and the oven might as well be alien technology for Dick Grayson. Hell, he'd probably do better with alien tech.

Where as Bruce? He might have had the capacity to be a cook once upon a time. But, he's spent his whole life either being Bruce WayneTM or being BatmanTM and either way, that sort of thing only works if you don't have to send time or energy or thought on things like where food and clean underwear are going to come from. Bruce Wayne does not make clean underwear happen. When you are Bruce Wayne, clean underwear just happens. Even if it means throwing out your tighty whities. Bruce isn't stupid, he could probably figure out how to reheat some soup on the stove without accidentally starting a small fire. ("I didn't know if it didn't light you were supposed to wait" "It's a gas stove, Dick, you can hear the gas. Just because it isn't lighting doesn't mean there isn't gas" "It was only a small explosion" "Shut up, and help me figure out what to tell Dad.")

She should probably offer to go over and help with... she's not really sure. She’s a decent cook, but mostly in her apartment. Bruce’s kitchen isn’t set up for a wheelchair. It really isn’t set up for any cook other than Alfred. But, as such, there’s no helping with food, or helping with dishes. And, she just straight up sucks at cleaning. Not that she doesn’t try, but… They don’t talk about it, but for her birthday this year, her dad just signed her up for the same cleaning service he’s been using for the past decade. And, for the love of all that’s holy, she’s not going to offer to “help with” Jason. She might ask the kid if he needs help (and he’ll probably growl at her and go back to whatever he’s doing because Jason is constantly angry these days), but she’s not stupid enough to offer to help with him. Because Jason is very much capable of making his own decisions and expressing his needs, even when they make other people’s lives difficult. Actually, especially when they make other people’s lives difficult. Particularly Bruce’s.

* * *

Chat with [ **609-341-3326** ]

**609-341-3326** (5:12 pm)
    M DICK SAYS HE MADE ARRANGEMENTS 2 GO OUT W U 2NIGHT. HE WAS V PUT OUT WHEN M BRUCE ASKED HIM 2 STAY HOME
**BAG** (5:13 pm)
    Mr Pennyworth?
**609-341-3326** (5:13 pm)
    YES MISS GORDON. WE R GETTING DINNER FRM MADRAS.
**609-341-3326** (5:14 pm)
    DO U WANT 2 JOIN US?
**BAG** (5:21 pm)
    Will Dick mind?
**BAG** (5:26 pm)
    Anything I can bring?
**Alfred Pennyworth** (5:31 pm)
    URSELF. SHOULD DICK PICK U UP FRM THE LAB?
**BAG** (5:34 pm)
    Yes please
**BAG** (5:34 pm)
    but I can drive myself. I have a car. I can drive.
**Alfred Pennyworth** (5:35 pm)
    QUITE SO, MISS GORDON
**Alfred Pennyworth** (5:35 pm)
    M DICK WILL B THERE @ 18:15 

* * *

She does stop by Max’s office on her way out. Before, when she was younger, she would have leaned in the door frame. Now, if she does that, she blocks it. So, she usually ends up in a corner, looking down the length of the desk. Max has already left for the day, though. His computer is gone, his coffee cup is empty and his bag is missing. He’s probably home with his wife and his toddler. Max is a more of a family man than Eric will ever be. That, or else he’s gone out with the other missing members of the lab. The ones who didn’t bother to invite her for lunch. Or drinks. Or anything else.  
She can congratulate Max tomorrow.

Heading outside, she finds Dick leaning against the hood of a Corvette. His dark hair flops over his eyes, and he looks James Dean cool in a white t-shirt and faded jeans. She’s sure there’s a leather jacket somewhere in the car, because even though Dick Grayson is a cop, he’s still a performer at heart and he knows a good prop when he wears one. It's the kind of scene intended to distract. Something is wrong. He must be staying at Bruce’s. If he’d been coming directly from Bludhaven or staying in a hotel, he’d be driving one of his cars. Probably the Honda, because it's still mid-April and rain is always possible and Dick is fussy about his cars. He's fussy about Bruce’s, too, but not fussy enough to keep him from driving something fun. He likes the Stingray. He’s never admitted it, but she suspects that he likes it because it has bluetooth. All the better to blast Frozen.

“Hiya Barbie.” The words are loud and excited, intended to carry. Definitely a performance.  
Dick is bored, or he’s scared. Possibly both. She wonders what’s wrong, why he’s here. Not _here_ , she knows as well as Alfred that she never much liked driving and Dick loves it.

“Hi Ken,” she purrs back. Yes, the early aughts want their music back. Shut up.

“You wanna go for a ride?” He pulls open the door of the Corvette.

She rolls her eyes. “My dad told me not to get into cars with strange men.” 

“Good thing I’m not that strange.”

“Debatable.”

Her best friend comes around the car to hug her, folding her in close. “Missed you, missed you, missed you.” The words are murmured in her ear. And, it feels like home. 

She missed Dick. She misses Dick. He’s off in Bludhaven half the time now, and New York a good portion of the rest. He’s got a girl in New York - Kori - who Barbara’s met and mostly likes. Except when a green eyed monster rears her head and Barbara compares herself to the girl Dick is currently dating who is smart and kind and soft and gorgeous and a literal princess. Instead, Barbara is intelligent in a way that clobers you over the head, and impatient and blunt and loud. She's all angles where Kori is curves and all curves where Kori’s angles, and she can't help but feel like she can't every measure up. She'll always be his best friend, he'll always be off with someone else.

He lets go, and then pulls out a towel. “I’ve got a layer of garbage bags across the seat.”

“My hero,” she jokes, transfering into the car and depositing the pieces of her wheelchair behind the driver’s seat. 

Dick grins that goofy grin, watching her. If she didn’t know him so well, she might not have noticed the shadow behind that smile. But, two years is a long time to trust someone with your life on a semi-regular basis. And, even with the shadows, she learned Dick’s tells. He was angry, then. Angry and trying to figure things out. He’s still angry, but he’s scared too.

“Business or pleasure?” She asks as Dick does his best not to tear out of the little parking lot just past her building. Instead, he shows off the car’s ability to turn on a dime, something she appreciates.

“Uhhh?”

“Why are you here?”

“Your first author.”

She rolls her eyes. “That could have waited until you were back for a holiday or something. Why are you here?” 

He shrugs. “Cross-jurisdictional case. They needed someone who knew ‘haven and Gotham.”

There’s more, but she doesn’t push it.

* * *

Chat with [ **Alfred Pennyworth** ]

**Alfred Pennyworth** (6:22 pm)
    PLS TELL M DICK HE IS 2 USE THE BLU CARD. HE IS NOT 2 PAY FOR FOOD HIMSELF.
**BAG** (6:25 pm)
    Blue card. Right. Anything else?
**Alfred Pennyworth** (6:25 pm)
    M. JASON WOULD LIKE MANGO LASSI & M BRUCE WANTS PAPADAM IF THEY HAVE IT
**Alfred Pennyworth** (6:27 pm)
    & IF UR GOING 2 THE LIQUOR STORE, USE THE BLUE CARD. CONGRATULATIONS MISS GORDON.
**BAG** (6:29 pm)
    kk. See you soon

* * *

There’s something to be said for the tendency of slightly eccentric billionaires to put automatic access doors in their homes. She’s not sure if it happened before or after Jason got hurt (knowing Bruce and his tendency to be a drama queen, probably before), but its damn convenient. Neither of them have a hand as they enter the manor: Dick because he’s attempting to balance three bags of take-out Indian (enough to feed a small army) as well as a drink container with lassi and Barbara because she needs her hands to move, but also because she’s got a lap full of craft beer and another drink container of lassis. Dick had ordered eight, mumbling something about Jason and solid food. 

The kitchen is as tidy and bright as always. Barbara deposits her load in the chrome-plated industrial fridge and Dick drops the bags on butcher-block island. He goes over to one of the cabinets by the sink and starts looking for plates.

Alfred comes in, not quite up to his usual bustle. His entrance fills the whole kitchen and answers a question she didn’t know how to begin to ask. It’s as though the chrome brightens in response to his presence and the fridge’s low hum sounds a bit happier. When Barbara is in a fanciful mood, she sometimes wonders whether Alfred is a Brownie or a Hobb indentured to the Wayne family long ago who stays on due to fondness for the manor and her people. Today, she’s just hungry so she hurries over to say hello.

Alfred’s idea of “light duty” seems to mostly involve bossing Dick around while he sets the table for four. And, most of the bossing seems perfunctory; Dick was already doing a good job before the butler appeared. He’d used the right plates and cutlery, had managed to set the glasses correctly, and with one look from Alfred, sets aside one more of the windsor chairs, as though he’s not sure if they’ll need it.

“Master Richard, would you please call Master Jason for dinner?” Alfred prompts. “Miss Gordon and I will lay out the food.”

“I need Dick for minute.” Bruce’s pale blue dress shirt is untucked and his tie is looped over his shoulder. She knows she should read it as the sign of trust it is. Dick uses clothes like armor, but only because he learned from the best. Bruce wouldn’t let anyone he didn’t trust at least a little see him like this: half dressed and entirely naked.

“I’ll go get Jason,” she offers. 

Three pairs of eyes swivel to stare at her.

“We can just…”

“It’s fine,” she insists. “No reason to let the food get cold. Where is he?”

Alfred puts up a hand. The three men have a silent conversation, telegraphing things to each other in a strange morse code born of long acquaintance. It’s Alfred who acquiesces. “The study.”

* * *

She finds Jason sitting on one of the couches, reading. He’s got his braced right leg propped up on an ottoman, the other leg of his track packs riding up to show his prosthesis. He looks… he looks like a little boy who’s trying to be a man and hold the world together. His black hair is sticking up at odd angles and even though he’s reading, his eyes look half asleep. He’s not quite past that mysterious threshold where tired stops being cute and just starts looking like hell. As much as Jason will refuse to admit it, he still looks so young.

“Go away.” His voice is rough. Rougher than it used to be. No less angry, though. “I already told you, Dickface, I’m not hungry.” He uses his braced left hand to wave up at the feeding bag hanging over his head. “I’ve already eaten.”

Barbara doesn’t know what the hell this is. She doesn’t know much, just what’s come third hand through Dick who mostly got it second hand through Bruce and Alfred. And, then, mostly through Alfred because Bruce has been AWOL since he brought a bruised and bloody Jason back from Ethiopia. 

“I’m not Dick,” she says quietly. “Can I join you?”

“Eh, why the fuck not? Why are you here? They send you to tell me about how I can be a happy fucking cripple?”

“The fuck, Todd?” She demands, voice hot. “You don’t get to call me that. No one gets to call me that. And, for your information, Dick asked me for a beer but Bruce made him cancel so then Alfred demanded I come for Indian food.” 

“That… that should make less sense than it does.”

“We got like… 80 lassis. I…” she rubs at an invisible spot on her pants. “Jason you better fucking come drink one because I swear to God, these are my favorite pants and I’ve only worn them like twice this week. I’m not Anderson fucking Cooper, but I expect to get at least another couple of wears out of my jeans before I have to wash them again. Because I fucking hate laundry day.”

“You like laundry. Dick said your adulting mantra was ‘Make Clean Underwear Happen’.”

“I used to like laundry,” she says with a sigh. She likes the way her clothes feel when they came out clean and smelling good, and that her favorites are fresh again. There’s nothing quite like the crispness and lingering warmth of slipping between sheets fresh out of the dryer. “It sucks now because we only have top-loading washers in my building and I can’t quite reach them.” 

Jason scrubs a hand over his face, and refuses to look at her. “See, this is what I mean about the rah-rah disability bullshit. You can’t even fucking do laundry anymore.”

“I can, mostly. It’s just a lot harder.”

The pump beeps, startling Jason. He fiddles with the feeding tube, furious blush creeping into his cheeks. “Yeah, well, what about the things you just can’t do anymore?”

The question cuts like a knife, all the sharper for the husk in Jason’s voice and the careful enunciation. 

The looks at the tears in his eyes and damn it, this is a conversation she doesn’t want to have with him. This is a question she doesn’t have an answer for, and it’s one where you can’t just say, “I don’t know.” It’s a question he’s not supposed be be asking _her_. He should ask Bruce about whether or not he’ll ever be Robin. He should ask Dick about what it’s like to give up the mantle. He should ask anyone else. Not her, not the girl who never filled the role. And yet, she’s the only one who might have answers.

“What about the things you just can’t do anymore?” The question is desperate, and he stares expectantly into her eyes with those little boy eyes. The ones that are so angry and so afraid. 

Sher wonders what he’s begging her to tell him. He’s alive, and breathing on his own, which were more than they’d expected for a long time. He’s awake, interacting with the world, and no one has used the words “Glasgow coma scale” to describe him to Barbara in months. He’s breathing on his own, the trach is gone, and he’ll, he’s even speaking again. That she was sent to fetch him for dinner probably means he’s able to eat some. The walker by the couch means he’s on his feet, at least part of the time. He’s doing all sorts of things that Dick’s “they” never thought he’d do, again.  
It’s just that none of them are what he wants.

“Then, then… then you figure out something new,” she lies. 

“I don’t want to find something new.” And damn it, now he just sounds petulant. “I liked things the way they were, before.”

 _Yeah, me too_. She doesn’t say the words though.

“I like not having cold food or getting scolded by Alfred.” Dick appears in the doorway like some sort of circus performer. His smile is still pasted on. She misses when he didn’t feel like he had to lie. “Seriously, Jay, if I have to get another round of the ‘Gentlemen don’t leave people waiting’, I’m going to flip. Barbara, you’re my witness.” 

“Literally or figuratively?” She interrupts. If she doesn’t, Dick will just continue to ramble. “Because, if it’s literally….”

“Shut up!” Dick’s ears turn red, like she knew they would.

* * *

“Okay, now you gotta tell me what the fuck, Grayson.” They’re alone in the kitchen, sitting across the table from each other. Bruce has shuffled off to his function, moving gingerly as though he has bruised ribs. They’d loaded the dishwasher under Alfred’s watchful eye, and then Alfred had wheeled Jason out with the demand that Dick come up before he leaves. “Are you on duty tonight?”

He mimes drinking again, eyes not meeting hers. “Its… I wasn’t supposed to… I’m not. Nightwing doesn’t work in Gotham. And, I’m not Batman, not now, probably not ever. I’m not scary enough.”

She eyed him. “You can be plenty scary when you want to be.”

“It’s the height,” Dick complains, dragging up a long-held argument. “There’s something about being over six feet tall in that cape that makes people run for it.”

She’s heard this argument before. She’s seen in, but that’s not it. “It’s the posture, Dick. You don’t know how to stand like anything but an acrobat. Batman stands like he eats babies for breakfast.”

“Has he been down to Crime Alley again? Damn, next time you go Jonathan Swift-ing, you gotta take me along.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here as Nightwing,” he insists. “It is a cross jurisdictional case: here, and Bludhaven, and a bit in New York. But then, I thought I was here, so I’d come see Alfred. I’ve been… worried. He’s. He’s my… what the hell kinda relationship do we have, Babs? He’s my Alfred and darn it, he’s supposed to be invincible. Bruce and Jay and I can get all banged up, but he’s supposed to just be there cool and slightly sarcastic and _fine_. Maybe a cold once in a while, to remind us he’s mortal and not some ageless member of a forgotten fae race, but not hurt or sick so bad he needs surgery!”

His face crumples a bit, but he stares at the table. She waits.

“It was just supposed to be that. Just that. Drop in, check up on Alfred. Maybe say hi to Jason. Avoid Bruce if I can help it. And work the case.” Dick drops his head into his hands. “Why can’t my life ever be that simple?”

“Because the only thing you’d hate worse than complicated is boring.”

“I want boring! Give me boring!” Dick opens his arms wide, as though imploring someone out there. “Give me boring!”

“But, Bruce banged up his ribs, and…”

“How did you know about Bruce’s ribs?”

She shoot him a look that said, _We worked together for two years. How do you think I know what someone trying to favor bruised ribs looks like?_

“B bruised his ribs, because he was fighting without back-up. He needs back up. B needs someone small and light who can do the things that he can’t. He… Batman needs a Robin.” Dick stares morosely into the bottle of beer he’s pretending to drink. If he didn’t feel like he had to patrol tonight, she imagines that he would have finished it. 

But, Dick Grayson has more self control than that; he’s not stupid. They might have pulled dumb shit like that back, when they were younger, once… and gotten read the riot act about it. They lived - Dick still lives - on a knife’s edge where it doesn’t take much for things to go wrong. Barbara and Jason are proof of that: things can go wrong whether you’re a civilian or a vigilante. You don’t need to tempt fate. 

Barbara reaches across the table and gently picks the bottle up. She places it and the two bottles from the table in her lap, and wheels to the sink, managing to splash beer on her good jeans in the process. Stupid Wayne boys, getting the one pair of jeans without back pockets dirty before their time. She dumps the three bottles in the sink. Then, she goes fishing in the lower cabinets where she knows Alfred keeps…

“Really?” Dick demands as she presents him with a cut glass punch cup half full of tap water. “Really, Miss Gordon?”

She giggles at Dick’s attempt at an English accent. It ends up sounding faintly Australian. “Really, Mr. Grayson. Or should I say, Robin?”

“Oh, no. Not… not me. I can’t do that. B… B… You know how you sometimes talk about Eric? Like even though you don’t always agree with him, you’ve hitched your star to his cause you think he can change the world with his maps?”

She feels a faint churning in her stomach. 

“I’m not saying Bruce is wrong, but I also don’t think he’s right. We… Bruce has his code. Bruce is married to his goddamn code. And, it’s just… it’s so black and white. What happens when…? And, we can’t talk about it, we can’t fucking talk about it!” Dick reaches for the punch glass, and swirls the water in it for a moment like it’s whiskey, then takes a long sip. 

“He needs someone, he needs a Robin,” Dick insists. “If he doesn’t have Robin, he’s going to get himself killed. And, if he does have one… he tried to bench me because I damn near got myself killed.” A hand slots under his t-shirt to the scars along his shoulder where he was shot. “I damn near got myself killed, and Jason… Jason’s… Jason’s just fuck.”

The punch glass hits the table top with force. She’s glad it doesn’t shatter, she doesn’t want to have to explain that to Alfred.

“Batman needs a Robin and I can’t be him and Jay can’t be him, and we can’t bring anyone else in and ruin their life, too.”

“Cause the only way out…?” She asks.

Dick nods. “The only way out...”

He glances at the clock. “Look, I, uhh, I know I’m supposed to drive you home, but i gotta suit up and get out. I can drop you off…”

“On that motorcycle you ride? My dad would have my head. Besides, you need back up. God, I wish I could suit up with.”

“The, uhh, would you? I know you can’t, but umm..”

“Yeah, Boy Wonder, I’ll come back you up here, too. I’ve got your back, Grayson.”

“Thanks.”

* * *

Never let it be said that Dick didn’t know how to hug her. Never, ever let that be said. Plenty of other things could be said - like the fact that she never did actually get her beer with Dick - but that was okay, because she got to play with the Bat computer instead. And, it turns out that if you and your best friend from forever are going to try to hack into gossip magazines to remove pictures of his family at four o’clock in the morning while he lays half on top of you in spandex… it turns out that the high you get from finding a way to be back in the field is almost as good for programing as the ballmer peak you get from sleep deprivation and 30 year old single malt scotch. 

`git commit`

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Ballmer peak](https://xkcd.com/323/), for the uninitiated. cw: alcohol.
> 
> Thank you to PennySparrow for her help with Alfred and texting. She is both a delight and almost entirely to blame for some portion of this. She introduced me to Barbara Gordon, disabled female informatician with a doctorate. So, like, she’s clearly responsible for a decent portion of this series. 
> 
> I don’t know why you need this description of the manor kitchen, especially because this is a comic and there are probably a million pictures and alfred probably doesn’t have windsor chairs in his breakfast nook. But, my mom has since I was a little girl and my grandma always did, so therefore, one should have windsor chairs in their breakfast nook. Sorry not sorry. 
> 
> Questions, Comments, Concerns, Suggestions, or alternative universes which should be explored here, please let me know?


	6. 3in_right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The alternative universe where the Joker's bullet went 3" to the right, and Barbara didn't end up in a wheelchair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Princess613 for suggesting this!
> 
> chapter specific warnings: suicide mention; semi-graphic description of injury; comic-typical violence; vomiting; SAS (the programing language, not the airline); computer programing in general; graduate school related mental health issues

`git checkout 3in_right`  
`liv bag20130418.day`

* * *

“What was it this time?” Chaz sounds sarcastic. “Bungee jumping?”

Barbara readjusts her sling, which she has had for slightly over ten hours and has hated for approximately ten hours. She doesn’t know how she’s going to deal with wearing this for another week while her shoulder heals. 

“No, wait,” Max studies her, “Trapeze?”

“Nah, Barbara's a vigilante,” Juan offers. “Ya know, she dresses up like a Robin and goes off to fight crime.” 

The other three laugh. 

Barbara acts mock offended. “I’m very clearly the Batman!” 

The boys just laugh more.

They tease her about it every few months when she comes in with a bruise, a scrape, a strain or a sprain. At least, a visible one. Her nightlife means there’s a fairly good chance there’s an invisible, healing bruise somewhere under her clothes. She’s learned to hide them, mostly. A wound on her legs probably means long pants, possibly loose ones. It’s easier to hide a torso cut when you wear dresses or tunics because they don’t ride up. And, tights are your friend, no matter the weather. Plus, Docs go with almost everything. Barbara’s favorite pair has roses. The worst things to hide, aside from broken bones, are hits to her forearms and face. She hasn’t quite gotten the hang of sleeves below her elbow, and so a bruise across her wrist is a problem. This shoulder thing, though… this is a new one.

Morning mischief managed, she struggles to pour herself a cup of coffee one handed while the boys disperse back to their respectively cubicles. Barbara goes to make a note in her planner, realizing that… damn. She didn’t have that bruise down her oblique last night and between that and the fact that her left arm and shoulder are out of commission for the next twelve-to-sixteen weeks… it’s going to be a _long_ month. 

She manages to get her list for the day written, and then opens up the file of traces she’s been working with for the past four days. Well, trying to simulate for the past four days. There’s a new algorithm Eric wants her to validate, which is weird enough in and of itself, because Eric Bishop rarely benchmarks other people’s algorithms. But, apparently this is worth trying.  
...Except that it’s written in SAS. Which should be impressive in and of itself. 

Barbara’s general impression of SAS is that 1972 called and wants its programing language back. The interface is half graphical user interface and half script and neither is well designed. And, really, all she fucking wants is to see her data. Why is that so hard? 

She just fucking wants to see her data. And touch her data the way her data wants to be touched and not in this bad touch proc summarize way that doesn’t generate a useful summary. And sniff it. And possibly lick it. Good data tastes like success with just a hint of static.

[Chat with **DICK** ]

**Dick** (9:23 am)
    How are you?
**Barbara** (9:25 am)
    Fine. Why do you ask?
**Dick** (9:34 am)
    Alfred mentioned that you might need Roy’s assistance. Again
**Barbara** (9:43 am)
    That was *one* time. Well, okay twice. It's not my fault that the people in my program worry!
**Barbara** (9:44 am)
    Although if things continue the way they've been going, I might need Kori. Or Donna. Do you think Donna would be willing to come play my girlfriend?
**Dick** (9:54 am)
    You... Donna... Donna is like my sister. How cna you even...?
**Barbara** (9:58 am)
    Your "family" is ridiculously good looking, Grayson. In fact, Donna might be out of my league. ...Wally in drag?
**Dick** (10:15 am)
    Not that I dont enjoy you wondering how to use my friends to lie to your coworkers, but what did you say think time?
**Barbara** (10:25 am)
    Parkour! 🏃🤸🏢🧗🏃 

Academic software… it’s one thing when you’re publishing analysis for a specific dataset with no intention that anyone re-use your code for much beyond that analysis. Or, like, maybe templating the exact same analysis that’s based on in house cleaning or something. ...It’s another when you publish your algorithm along with “working” code and… 

She spins in her chair and checks her email. Eric wants to know about her progress. Fuck. She marks it as unread, and pretends like she hasn’t checked her email.

She spins in her chair and wonders how hard it would be to get the .sas7bdat into something where she could actually _see_ the data. There are… oh. 

She spins in her chair and checks her email, and oh, fuck, there’s another email from Eric. And…  
She feels the tears prickling at the corner of her eyes. 

She doesn’t know why she thought she could do this. She has plenty of friends who just fell apart, no double life needed. Josh had shattered under the pressure in his third year and just… broken in ways she doesn’t understand. He’s still shaky and angry and blames everyone else for his failures. Justine had swallowed the things that had gone wrong until they burned through her like a hole and she once whispered about a 72 hour hold. Sky had gotten into drugs: hard and soft and medium. Anything to make the voices in your head stop. Alex had slept with a student. Then another one. Then a third. And Barbara? Barbara goes out three to four nights a week and beats the shit out of the criminals of the city in an attempt to find justice. 

The office around her is busy, and Barbara’s shoulder hurts and her side hurts, and there are tears prickling at the corner of her eyes which might be hot with tears and might just be hot with the scratchy feeling of not having slept in hours. And she wants to cry because her shoulder hurts bad and her bruised leg hurts good, and someone really did decide to re-implement the _average_ function. And because forty semi-distracted hours a week don’t cut it as a graduate student in Eric Bishop’s lab and she needs to get her shit together and get this method together because it’s been four years and she’s had three papers and only one of them first author (although she might have another in the works) and she keeps getting sucked into things and she’s so clearly failing.

And so, she types out a quick email to Eric promising that she’ll update him with her progress this afternoon and that things are… going.  
Eric will not be pleased with her progress. Eric wants this validated badly. Eric seems to think that she’s the best person for it.

[Chat with **DICK** ]

**Dick** (12:17 pm)
    Hey, have you eaten yet?
**Dick** (12:25 pm)
**Dick** (12:40 pm)
    Barbara, have you eaten yet?

Someone’s an asshole, and their phone is ringing. Why aren’t they answering? Oh, wait. Right. Fuck.

Wait, no, fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Fuuuck. Nope nope nope nope.

“Hello?” She hopes the tears aren’t in her voice. Or the fact that she’s currently taking a call from under her desk.

“Hiya Babs!” Dick is cheerful as always. “Have you eaten?”

“Ummm… I’ve decided to become a Bat.” She pauses, the logic of four hours of fitful opioid-induced sleep, three cups of coffee, and the very tail end of the percocet Alfred forced into her so he and Leslie could get her shoulder back into place kicking into play. “A Bat… or maybe a gremlin.”

“So, no,” Dick concludes.

“Why do you care?”

“Because your dad worries.” 

“He could call me himself,” she says, mulishly. She can almost hear Dick shrugging on the other end of the phone. “And why have you been talking to my dad?”

“Cross jurisdictional bullshit. And Bruce, probably. Bs not good at sharing his toys.”

“I’ve noticed.” She can’t keep the bitter note out of her voice.

“I don’t know why you do it,” He dredges up the ole argument. “You could have gone to Columbia!”

“I don’t know why you decided to be a cop, Grayson.”

“Cause I like doing what’s right.”

“Yeah, well, I'm trying to remember the last time I saw that.” She’s she knows she’s baiting him into something. She wants a fight. 

The world around her is rapidly filling up with the half-hallucination sparkles that mean that her brain is starting to fritz. She can still mostly program in this state, but she’s also liable to cry, pick fights, and make mistakes. It doesn’t help that she hasn’t had more than four hours of sleep in the last 48, and it’s almost 1 pm, and all she’s eaten today is a percocet and several mugs of black coffee.

On the other end of the phone, she can almost hear Dick counting down in his head. Ten, then ten, then ten. Not many people know it, but Dick has a temper to rival hers. Its just that he’s learn to bury his under layers and layers of restraint. And that when it does emerge, it’s sarcastic and icy, a white cold fury meant to chill you to the bone. Dick doesn’t have time of leash the full force of his temper on her. 

“Barbara,” Her name is even sounding, “Have you had lunch yet?”

“Nope,” she admits, lightly, her emotions on their wild, starry swing. “No, I haven’t.”

“Don't you think you should go get something?”

“Nothing sounds good.” God, she sounds petulant. If the conversation were reversed and she were asking Dick about getting something to eat, he’d just sound reserved. She sounds petulant. Sometimes, she hates the sexist double standards around her. Especially the ones in her head. “And, anyway, I have to meet with Eric at two.”

She can almost hear Dick putting his head in his hands through the phone. “Okay, Barbara. After you meet with Eric, will you please go home and eat something there?”

“Yes, Dad,” She sighs.

Dick hangs up on her. 

Barbara saves her scripts, probably. She’s got this amazing editor that will actually autosave and retrieve your shit as long as you’re not a dumbass who tries to close scripts individually. Of course, it also means that she has about 80 tabs marked down in about 3 languages (plus a couple of plain text documents and markdown. Does markdown even count as a language?). She goes and gets another cup of coffee with milk and too much sugar to fortify herself for her meeting with her boss about a project that isn’t going well. Sugar and milk, those count as calories, right? That’s enough for now.

She arrives at Eric’s office just before two, hanging outside the door to watch as who ever is in there with him squeezes the meeting to the last possible moment. She should feel lucky to work for such a famous man. She should feel lucky to work for someone who is so busy that everyone wants to consult with him, that he’s a TED fellow, that he runs a successful multimillion dollar a year lab and has a strong start up on the side. She doesn’t. She just feels tired and vaguely nauseous. Because percocet. And pain. And the empty stomach conundrum of “Am I hungry or am I going to throw up?”

Eric’s guest opens his door and stares at her for a full moment. Like he’s never seen a twenty-something woman in a wash-soft Batgirl t-shirt from Target, purple converse, a sling, and what is probably a bruise blooming on her face that she failed to cover well this morning because she was running late and none of the makeup at the manor matched her skin tone without making her look like a corpse or Snooki. “Uhhh…”

“Oh, yes, Dr. Karahalios, Dr Isley, I’d like you introduce you to Barabara Gordon, one of our very talented graduate students.” Eric is blase about the situation.

Barbara manages to shake the doctors’ hands, because she is mostly house broken, and even in this half-hallucinating state, she can still play nicely with the woman who she was probably fighting last night and her companion. 

Eric holds the door open for her, ushering her inside while the guests leave. “We’re just waiting for Jo, Dan, and Mo.” 

He lets her collapse onto the infinitely awkward red arm chairs anyway. Eric has a little standing desk in a corner that she’s almost never seen him work at, a long couch, two chairs, and a whiteboard covered in notes. The couches are a slightly inappropriate shade of red that makes Barbara think of her father’s affairs more than they instill faith in scientific collaboration. 

“So, what happened?” Eric’s conversation is always stitled, like the great man doesn’t know how to talk outside his field.

“I was, umm, out last night when that scarecrow attack happened,” she offers. “Got caught up in it and hurt my shoulder.”

Eric frowns. Injury while avoiding supervillains is very clearly covered in the student and employee handbook as acceptable reason for absence. “Why didn’t you just email from the hospital, then?”

“Because it took three months to schedule this?” She doesn’t mean to sound accusatory. 

She’s just… she wonders how Eric would react if she told him that he had acquired a faint fairy-like sparkle. She doesn’t think it would go over well. He’d probably send her back to the hospital. She’s been exposed to fear toxin a few times, and this is pretty much lack of sleep but she can’t admit that without explaining more than she wants to.

Eric grunts, and motions toward one of the seats in the office. 

Eric nods, like this confirms his worst suspicions about her, and then smiles brightly as the other three members of the graduate advising board troop into his office. He shakes their hands and motions them to sit on the not-sex couch. 

The air sparkles around Jo - Dr Josafine Vazquez Castillo as she settles gingerly. The men follow. “So, Miss Gordon…” She glances over at the graduate student. “What, what happened?”

“Uhh… I umm, dislocated my shoulder?” Barbara winces. Yes, there is definitely a bruise on her cheekbone. “The scarecrow.” 

The three non-Eric professors frown in concern, but they’re all too polite to ask the obvious questions. So, they forge ahead with the meeting instead, tag teaming on lecturing her (and Eric) about her current lack of progress, and the plan to get her to completion. Which might also be a thinly veiled attempt to encourage to her to drop out entirely, because she clearly has other priorities if she’s coming to work with a dislocated shoulder.

Halfway through the discussion of masters as an option (the entirely group conveniently forgetting that she’s passed her qualifying exams, which basically gives her the graduate student equivalent of tenure), she feels her stomach rebelling. She tries to tamp down on the nausea, only to have it come up in full force. She’s forced to run out of the room.  
For the record, Eric’s admin is a saint and deserves good things. She needs to buy Ami a potted plant to add to her collection. Maybe a spider plant, those things are friendly, and, as far as she can tell, mostly immune to Poison Ivy.

She feels better when she slips back in. She always feels better after throwing up. The three not-Eric faculty members seem confused by this behavior. Eric doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Miss, uhh, Gordon,” Mo glances over at her. “We’ll follow up by email when you’re feeling better.”

“Please, take care,” Dan directs.

She nods, and follows them out of Eric’s office. She knows he wants her to stay so he can interrogate her about the project, but the head of her program and the head of his department just sent her home.

* * *

She lays in bed in her panties and her bra and the batgirl t-shirt she might need to cut herself out of because she’s not sure how she’s going to get it over her head, and waits for sleep to come. But, her over caffeinated brain is too tired for sleep. It keeps short circuiting into that place where she was getting those random twitches on the bus. She could try a movie, or maybe some music, see if she can wind herself down, but she doesn’t. Instead, she wonders how she’s going to make it through. This… she’s not sure she can keep doing this. Her work is getting more and more demanding, and graduate school is a gaping maw that could easily swallow Barbara Gordon whole. Her advisor and the other professors are right, she’s not making progress and she needs to make progress. It’s luck, sure, she hasn’t been lucky, but there are other issues. 

She… maybe Dick is right and she should have left. Maybe Dick is right and what they’re doing is wrong and… Once upon a time, she wanted to be a cop. Because she thought that cops could protect people, could bring them to justice. But, once upon a time was a long time ago, before the faint scar along her hip from where the bullet grazed, and her fear of cameras and of being naked, and of leaving her dad alone for too long. Being a cop is a for a world where things are simple, and the police and courts and judges are effective and objective and fair. This… this isn’t that world, not at all. 

But, if she wasn’t going to be a cop, she damn well still wants to make a difference. And, Gotham needs her. Gotham needs her more than the Titans do, more than New York or Bludhaven, or anywhere else in the world. Gotham needs her and she needs Gotham, and… maybe the whole thing is unhealthy and co-dependent and it says bad things about her mental state that she feels a need to go out and play vigilante in a cowl and cape three nights a week. Part of her wishes she could do it more, that she could just give everything else up and _be_ Batgirl, the same way Bruce seems to let himself be The Batman™. Except that vigilantism is like grad school in its own way, and you have to have a life outside the cowl as well. Or at least people who make you have interests outside the cowl... Even if those interests are dumb things like... video games or... romance novels, or… or… or… 

Or sleep.

`git commit`

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, umm… Ive been attempting to translate SAS and Matlab recently. Can you tell? What is it with proprietary programing languages and meandering code? 
> 
> I think Im going to try for the other chapter Princess613 suggested as well, so maybe I’ll continue this as I exhaust universes. Maybe not infinite earth crisis level, but… a something? Questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, speculation, commiseration, tangents about things related to the story, tangents about things not related to the story, and stories in general all welcome.


	7. white_dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A universe where the joker was actually contained in prison, Barbara followed through on her original PhD plans, and business class beats economy any day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Religious imagery; canon depictions of violence; kidnapping; guns; OCC and OTT

`$ git checkout white_dress`  
`liv bag20130418.day`

The sunlight lances through the high library windows and glances of the gold ring on her finger, sending reflections across the page of maps in front of her. They’re copies of Guerry’s maps, ones she’s seen over and over again. These are the maps that started here on this journey, the foundation for moral statistics, the reason she can do what she does. These copies, and the maps that she’ll see tomorrow, these are part of the culmination of her thesis work, and of this trip in particular. She’s been tracking Guerry across Europe, Guerry and his maps and his math and his ideas. She’s already been to see Snow, to see Picquet, to see Dupin, but this… this is the first time anyone had done what she will do, and… she should be excited for this culmination of everything. 

Instead, she watches the sun play across her ring. It’s a simple band, polished rose gold, narrow and yet so large. She can’t feel the inscription of the inside, but if she closes her eyes, she can see it: Beloved ~ 5/22/85. They’d talked about adding a second date, but she’s been putting that off. It’s not that she doesn’t want it there, it’s not that she doesn’t want the reminder. The date is etched into her heart. 

...She’d told him that, their wedding day, and he’d gone quiet for a moment. And then, he’d promised, “I’m going to get a seal on my arm, then!” She’d laughed. 

They’d laughed more when he’d come back the morning after their wedding with a flimsy paper package and they’d spent the next few hours lazily naked, limbs tangled together as they used the white wash cloths to put press the tattoos to their chests and arms and legs. They’d tried their tongues too, or thought about it. But, there were better things to lick than tattoos with the two of them there. 

They’d gone back to Gotham that way: giddy and married and covered in pink and purple and blue seal temporary tattoos. It had been a lot less fun to be covered in peeling sea creatures as they had to deal with their disappointed parents. The con of inlaws who have known you since you were a child is that they sometimes still lecture you like you’re a child.

Alfred had been mad in part because he’d wanted to throw them a wedding in the rose garden. Even though they got married in November. He’s been cool about it, making a few snide comments and filled with the venom of midwestern nice. Alfred forgets that both Barbara’s mom grew up in west Michigan and Auntie Barbie is from the part of Wisconsin that’s just far enough north to not quite be Chicago anymore. Barbara grew up on that brand of midwestern disappointment that’s about being nice. Alfred did seem happier about it, though, after that family dinner at the manor, like he was more shock and disappointed they hadn’t included him than actually angry.

Her dad was… if not unhappy, perhaps hurt in the same way. She’s his little girl, whether or not she arrived as a teenager, and she’s the second most important woman in his life. She’s learning how conservative her father is, something she’d known peripherally, but perhaps hadn’t fully realized until after she dragged Dick off for that whirlwind weekend. He’d… he’d wanted to be asked. He’d wanted to give her away. She’d been angry at first when he’d told her that, full of righteous fury about patriarchal ideals and the fact that she was not changing her name, not personally nor professionally. And, her dad had gathered her up into the sort of hug that he thought could say all the words that couldn’t, and struggled to find the words. “Not because you’re mine… not because you’re his… but… no because you’re his, but because you’re a gift and sometimes the best thing to do is to give your greatest gifts away.” 

And Bruce, she’s still not sure why Bruce was so angry. Maybe because it seemed like a tequila fueled decision from two people who were too young to know better and yet should have anyway. Maybe he was mad because he couldn’t give Dick away. Maybe it was simply that her claim to Dick is now greater than his, that this is one more wedge in the growing chasm between the two men as Dick Grayson navigates how to be his own man and Bruce Wayne learns to let go of his toys. Maybe it’s that Bruce is afraid that they’ll both go, and leave him alone in the echoing old house, again.  
Also, he might have been slightly pissed about the seal tattoos. But, Dick is an adult can decide whether or not he wants to risk potential skin rash to look like a Lisa Frank store threw up on him.

She flips the page of her book, picks up her pen, flips the slim bic between her fingers. Because there are tactile sensations you need when you’re thinking, and the way a ballpoint pen breaks down the pages of a cheap notebook, making them textured and pliant with your writing is one of them. Plus, Bic Round Stic Mediums are an excellent texture for chewing if you need something to chew on while you’re trying to translate French. Barbara isn’t entirely sure her brain is wired for romance languages. Programing languages, sure, but not Romance languages.

Except that instead of translating the monograph, she finds herself doodling in the margins. Mrs. B. G. Grayson. She’d never give up her name. Hell, she suggested he take hers so that they can be a confusing modern couple: “Dr and Mr B Gordon” as soon as she finishes her PhD. But, there’s something about wanting to wear her identity as his wife wrapped around her like a blanket when she can’t wrap herself in his presence. 

It’s only a few more days until she wraps up this tour and goes back to her code and her photocopies and her cubicle and her husband. Or, she hopes she can go back to her husband. He was supposed to come with her. That was part of the whole “getting married” thing. They got married to make it easier for him to get a visa so they could spend six months bumming around Europe together. (In reality, it turned into six months of her frantically researching and occasionally calling him for translation because that stupid fucker didn’t rush through high school and therefore actually completed four years of both french and spanish. And, he understand conjugation. _He_ should be here, leaning over the photocopies next to her and charming the curators into letting him tag along. He should be here, and she misses him so much she can taste it.

She tries to translate a few more lines, and gets stuck flipping through the dictionary trying to find the particular, archaic word. Or, maybe not even a particular, archaic work, maybe just a curly hand. It would be so much easier with someone who is fluent. 

She slides the ring off her finger to play with it while she tries to find the right verb. She flips it across her pointer finger where she can feel the absence of the words. She should have had them done in Gotham, before they’d left the first time. But, those first few months where heady and hectic and they’d been trying to figure out what to do with her apartment (sold it, or stuck it in her dad’s garage) and his school things (sold them, burned them, stuck them in her dad’s garage). They’d needed to get Dick a passport - his had expired years ago, after he settled down with Bruce. In the past ten years he’s been off world more than he’s been out the Eastern time zone. 

She could have done it when they went back, too. She could have had it done when she broke her hand and spent six weeks in a cast and her left hand was too swollen to do anything and her husband had to wait on her. Instead, she’d threaded it on a chain and worn it as a necklace. She could have dropped it off one of those weeks when they went with the Titans. (Batgirl can’t wear a ring, even if Barbara wants to keep it with her.) She could have done it almost any time. But, she didn’t. Because she was afraid. 

Dick claimed he was made for monogamy, that his wild oats have been sewn, and he doesn’t need anything more. (She worries sometimes, about the wild oats. Enough that when they’d been talking about it, she’d dragged him to a Planned Parenthood in Gotham so they could both get tested and he could hold her hand while they, umm, installed, her IUD.) Dick’s memories of his parents happy together. Dick’s memories are of his parents disagreeing and making up. Dick’s memories are of people who wanted to stay together more than anything else.

Barbara was raised by a pair of brothers who were both in love with something more important than their wives. Roger… she has no proof, no more than a child’s memory of things that weren’t quite right. A cigarette in the ashtray when neither of her parents smoked. A hotel key left behind when he’d had a late night at the plant. The smell of a cologne that wasn’t her mother's. Uncle Jim, he’d never lied, not really. At least, not when Barbara was there. Aunt Barbie and Sarah, they both knew about each other. The woman they couldn’t acknowledge was the one who didn’t climb into bed with them, the city that James Gordon gave his heart to.

So, maybe if the Graysons are built for monogamy and forever, the Gordons aren’t. And, maybe she was just afraid that if she took it off for anything but their vigilante work that maybe she’d forget her vows and some of that honeymoon magic would wear off, and it wouldn’t matter anymore because she’d have ruined the ring with a date that wouldn’t last.

She’s about to pick up her pen again when her phone rings. It’s a cheap pay-as-you-go, the European version of a jitterbug. She knows it’s hers because even though its cheap, she sprung for a custom ringtone for a number that never calls. She’s been buying a new SIM card in every country, sending the number by SMS every time she changes, by email, by IM, by letter, hell, she’d send it by carrier pigeon if she thought that she’d get the phone call she wanted. She’d put a message in a bottle and cast it into the goddamn ocean if she thought that it would bring him home.  
Except that as Barbie Girl blasts through the hallowed and echoing halls of a Parsian library and she confirms her status as rude American, Barbara isn’t sure she can be bothered to care. 

“Dick?” She gasps into the phone, praying that it hasn’t gone to voicemail.

“Mrs Grayson?” The voice on the other end has an accent, a romance language maybe, or greek. Spanish, maybe, based on the way he says her name.

“Uhh, yes?” She’s never Mrs. Grayson, but that doesn’t matter now. She lets herself elide into a different woman, one who sounds older and more sure of herself and isn’t standing huddling outside a library in the rain in jeans and an utterly unfashionable raincoat. “This is she, with whom am I speaking?”

“Mrs Grayson, good. I have news about your husband. We need you to come tonight, to identify him.”

“Identify him?”

“Identify him,” the voice confirms, “so he can be remanded into your custody.”

“My… what? With whom am I speaking?” 

She starts fumbling in her pockets, trying to find her American phone. She has her Lux somewhere, for directions and email and academic twitter and dispairing of whether her dad will ever actually learn to use the camera or if she will continue to videochat with his ear… and for recording phone conversations with people who are calling her from Dick’s number.

The voice on the other end of the phone laughs as she manages to balance the two phones near enough to each other that she hopes she’ll be able to pick up her conversation. If these weren’t the only pants she has, she would probably just sit on the ground so that she could put the three together better.

She wishes she could turn on speaker phone, but she doesn’t dare.

“With whom am I speaking?” She repeats, the words clipped even though she desperately wants to know about Dick. 

“All in good time, Mrs Grayson. All in good time.” The man on the phone chuckles, and it sends chills down her spine. “But first, I must ask, what would you give for word of him?”

The caller pauses, letting her rack her brain for an answer. What wouldn’t she give?  
It’s been so long since she’s heard from him. It’s been too long since she’s heard from him. Almost two weeks since he dropped off the grid, around the time she was leaving Vienna. Usually, they exchange a text or something to check in every day. But, they’d had one of those fights. One of the big ones. The kind that remind her of why there isn’t a date in the ring.

“Tell me!” She wants shouts into the phone, and the caller will laugh. And then, it will all be for naught. She’s learned that much from her nightlife.

“What are you asking?” She tries to divorce emotion from her voice. “And, what are you offering?”

“Asking, Mrs Grayson? Why… nothing. Nothing at all. Just a few moments of your time and possibly an introduction to a few of your father’s friends.”

“And, offering?”

“Why, your husband.”

“How do I know you have him?” It’s a cautious question, but damn it if she hasn’t see the scenario play out before without a victim. Or worse… with one who is already dead.

“Check your email, Mrs. Grayson.”

“I’m on a research trip, Mr…” she lets the silence hang, in her best Alfred Pennyworth impresion. She hopes that her voice is not shaking. If there was any time to put on her Karen from the PTA voice, it is today.

“Very well, Mrs. Grayson. You may call me Mr. Oso.”

“Thank you. I’m on a research trip, as you doubtless know, Mr. Oso. I’ve just stepped out of a meeting to speak with you, and I do not have access to my email.”

“Very well,” he sighs. “Your husband… he has a particular scar.” And, as he goes on to describe it, she knows he has Dick. She knows it for sure. Not some clone, not some accidental “Rick”, but her husband. And… and… and his teammate. Kori. Because they were connected together by certain pieces of anatomy and it definitely wasn’t holding hands or playing footsie.

“You have him,” she gets out. “But, I still do not have proof of life. I have no desire to be a widow before I’m thirty, Mr Oso. I do not need a body to bury.”

“Then you will just need to come and see for yourself.”

“I am… I am out of the country. It will take time..”

“Yes, you’d mentioned. In consideration of that, I will give you until noon tomorrow.” He gives her an address in Gotham.

She thanks him, hangs up the phone, stops the likely half useless recording.

And then, she sinks to the ground, the wet stone pressed against her back and her ass the only thing keeping her in place. She takes a shuddering breath, and then another. And, she lets herself cry. She just… indulges herself. She slips the ring off her finger and clutches it to her chest and she cries.

And then, she dries her eyes and goes in to check her email and collect her things and make some phone calls.

* * *

It’s her first time flying business class. It’s a weird detail that she knows will stick with her forever. Her first time flying business is to return home to deal with her husband’s kidnappers. She’s used to sitting in the back of the plane with the rest of the cattle. Most of her travel thus far has involved the University. If you say the words “Economy Premium” three times when looking at flights, the spirit of a vice chancellor appears like an phantom to whisper the words, “lowest cost _economy_ ticket that meets your needs on a domestic airline” before vanishing back into the administrative ether. It’s a different experience. And, she sort of regrets that it will be one she associated with panic and feeling like a goblin child masquerading as an adult. 

The third thing she’d done after she received the Phone Call was make a collect call of her own to a number she knows by heart but hasn’t called in a long time. And prayed he would pick up. Then, she tried another, scavenged up from the dregs of the internet. And, somehow, miraculously, that one made it through. So, she stood there dripping and shivering and sniffling and leaking blood from uncomfortable places because if someone is going to call you with kidnapping demands for your husband who might be cheating on you with a very hot alien, they do it on the second day of your period when your flow is the heaviest and even the super absorbent tampons end up not quite being enough.

Bruce’s voice didn’t sound much different today than it had when they’d had that final argument. The one about whether or not he could bench Dick as Robin. The one about whether or not he could bench her as Batgirl, given that the name and the role were her own. The one about whether or not they were capable of making their own decisions about right and wrong; good and evil; law, justice, and mercy. Things had been said that can’t be taken back, things that hang heavy in the air like an invisible ghost when she thinks of Bruce. Things that make her stomach churn.

But, she needs to get back to Gotham. She needs to get back tonight. She needs to be there. It doesn’t matter what it costs. Money? She would have called in a payday loan if she’d had to, or gone to a bail bond agent, or… she’s not sure what. Maybe she’s lucky that all this is costing her is a tense reunion with her… inlaw? Husband’s guardian? Bruce? (God, she doesn’t know how to describe him.) Being able ot go back is costing pride, but pride is worth getting Dick back. And, if he’s angry… well, at least there will be time for him to be angry with her. And, maybe, time for her to be angry with him. Just… time.

Bruce had handed her over to an administrative assistant who had started clucking and taking charge of things. Barbara had met Dot once, a tiny woman in her late fifties who is Alfred’s counterpart at WE. Dot is the door keeper. Dot is the person who provides oil to make sure things run smoothly. Dot knows almost all of Bruce’s secrets and keeps his professional calendar. Dot probably has her own theories on why Bruce comes in beat up so often, but she keeps them to herself. Barbara has always been half in awe and half terrified of Dot. The warmth in her voice when she said “Honey” after no one calling Barbara by a random, public endearment in months almost broke her.

Dot had made the arrangements. She’d gotten Barbara on the first flight out of Paris. She asked if Barbara needed someone, because if so, WE had a french admin who needed to come over for some training and if Barbara was able to wait five hours instead of four, Marcel or Sandrine or Erica the American Intern who has been looking for a ticket home for her Grandmother’s birthday could come with her. Dot changed her cell phone plan, put international calling on it. Dot called Alfred who called the bank and transferred more money into Dick and Barbara’s shared account than she will make in three years. 

When Barbara tumbled out of the cab the concerned librarian had called for her at terminal two and wandered up to the ticket counter, her ticket was already waiting and all she had to do was show her passport. A concierge from the airline met her at the gate with a shopping bag of clothes so she wouldn’t have to sit in her wet jeans. She didn’t even think about it, she just accepted the bag.

And now, she’s curled up on a seat that lies flat, trying not to cry. She should be strong. She has to be strong. Bruce will be strong and her father will be strong and Alfred will be stoic and Jason will be angry and Tim? Jim? Bruce’s new baby bat will be whatever he is. She hasn’t really met the new baby bat. He came after The Argument. But, the point is that all the men will be strong and stoic and emotionally constipated and she’ll need to be that way too.

She wants to cry. She’s got another four hours on this flight. The only people here who will see her are strangers. People who don’t know that her husband is kidnapped. People who don’t know that she’s having to go back to her estranged father?-in-law for help. People who slept more than five hours last night because their fathers know how to manage the antenae and the blue ray player because their dads like MASH late at night. Fuck it, she’s going to be the gremlin who cries.

* * *

There’s something about the way the water smells near the Gotham near the old shipyards. Something about the way the wind whips across the water on a cold winter night, and the desolation of that part of the docks. They’re not so far from her dad’s new house. The one he moved into last year, grumbling all the while about moving and storing his adult daughter’s things. It wouldn’t be such a bad place in the day. It’s right on the cusp of the kind of gentrification that turn the mostly empty old warehouse buildings from storage into expensive condos and trendy food markets. They’re alleys away from a Whole Foods. But, gentrification hasn’t touched this corner yet, and down this particular back street, the Yards are still what they were when she was a child: sinister and dangerous and inviting.

She’s dressed for bear: comfortable, easy to move in clothes and a light jacket. She has the SIG pistol she knows Bruce disapproves of in a holster under her jacket in a shoulder holster. It shouldn’t make her feel safe: a gun fight is exactly what they don’t need tonight. Shooting will just get someone hurt, more than likely Dick. There was a discussion about kevlar and maybe a flak jacket; she’s got a vest on but damn it, that might have been a mistake. But, the bullet stopping power of kevlar is hard to exchange for the few seconds of movement. She knows the difference in agility might save her life, but the armor might do the same.

“Ahh, Mrs. Grayson.” 

The man who steps out of the warehouse shadows looks like he belongs in a dime store detective novel. He seems to suck the color out of the air around him, or perhaps, it’s simply that he’s chosen to dress in shades of white, gray, and black that create a stark contrast in the patchy light. His crisp trench coat, fedora, and black suit are in sharp contrast to the north face jacket and steel-toed boots Barbara is wearing.

“Mr. Oso, I presume.”

Never let it be said that she doesn’t have a flare for the dramatic. Maybe not Dick’s flare for drama, but it’s hard to beat that boy’s sense of style.

“You would presume correctly, Mrs Grayson. I see you made good time.”

“Yes, sir,” she agrees because this doesn’t seem like an encounter where you want to be impolite. It also buys them time. The longer she spends speaking with this oily man the more time Batman and Robin these days can search the warehouse for Dick. 

“And, you brough the money?”

She hefts the case.

“And, The Batman?” The man seems hungry. “Sure Mrs Grayson, since your father is the commissioner of police, he could call in a favor for his own son in law. Did you bring The Batman, Mrs Grayson?”

Barbara shakes her head, no. She cannot trust her voice. 

He pulls out a gun from his jacket and studies it, leveling it at her. “I’ll ask again, did you bring the Batman?”

“No,” she manages to get out around the fear. “No, I didn’t.” It’s not even a lie. “I came to get my husband.”

“Good,” Mr. Oso smiled. “That will make this so much easier.” He holds out his hand for the case.

She shakes her head, holds it tighter. “I need to know that he’s alright.”

Mr Oso laughs, oily and unpleasant.

“I need to know that he’s alive, and will stay so after we leave,” she amends. “I need to know that he’s not broken beyond repair.”

“He was broken beyond repair before we got him,” Oso’s words come back harsh. “But, you were too.”

“My husband,” she repeats, letting the light glance off her ring. “Where is my husband?”

Mr. Oso produces a tablet from the case he’s carrying, because even people with a 1930s noire asthetic need technology, and uses it to call someone. He’s quickly holding up an image with Dick’s face.

“Dick?”

“Barbara?” He thrashes against against the handcuffs holding him in place. The light plays across the small watercolor tattoo with the scar running through it. 

“Dick?” she repeats. “What was the worst food from your childhood?”

It’s not some coded question, but it’s also one of those things she’ll never forget. A detail most people won’t know, won’t think to ask about. Not a bank question, not a social media question, not something publicly available… just a tiny, insignificant detail that will make all the difference in the world.

He just thrashes. “Barbara!”

“Ask him!” She demands of Oso. “If this is live, and this had better be live, ask him!”

“You’re not really in a position to be making demands,” Oso mutters as he speaks to the person with Dick.

A person appears on the feed, and he leans in, asking Dick the question.

“Hot crossed buns!” The words are a shout against the crack of a slap. But, it’s the right answer. 

“Thank you, Mr. Oso.” 

She turns back to him, trying to reassert gravitas that she feels she’s lacking. It’s started to drizzle which simply reinforces the man’s dramatic appearance while making her look more like a college student gremlin than a woman with a husband and a job and three academic publications. 

“Now that you are sure he is alive, you will give me the briefcase, and then, Mrs Gordon, you may go retrieve your husband.”

The clock strikes midnight as the man in the trenchcoat uses a large key to unlock the warehouse. Barbara follows him inside. She is ready. She is prepared. She will go through fire and swim through floods and face death itself to get her husband back. It’s her turn.

`$ git commit`

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a… big deviation, I think. I have an unpublished something somewhere that if Barbara hadn’t met the Joker, she would have headed on a research tour in 2011 or 2012. In the primary timeline, she’d gotten approval shortly before she was shot and was making arrangements. Additionally, because of her marriage, she wasn’t with her dad that saturday with the Joker.
> 
> Also, oh God, I cried writing this chapter. I cried so hard. And, I'm still not sure I got quite what I wanted. This feels… like maybe too much of an AU. And, I'm not entirely sure where it got set or what the continuum is to get here. Except that apparently the joker never came to call on Barbara that weekend. And Jason is mostly still Schrodinger's Robin. 
> 
> So, umm.... questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, blame, affirmations, and general screaming all welcome. Thanks for joining me on this weird journey through a non-canon multi verse


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